Practical resources Independent guidance
Build your housing career evidence bank
Use this printable skills worksheet to record genuine examples, your own contribution, results and learning for housing job applications.
This worksheet helps you turn a real experience into evidence for a specific job criterion. Complete one copy for each example you want to develop. Keep it with your own notes: this website does not accept, save or receive your answers.
Start with an actual person specification. The National Careers Service application guidance recommends relevant experience, and its STAR guidance offers a way to organise an example. This worksheet adds prompts for limits, evidence and a next step.
Choose one criterion
Copy the employer's requirement accurately into your private notes. Mark whether it is essential or desirable and where you found it. If it combines several skills, separate them so you can see what your example covers.
A broad requirement such as “communicate clearly” needs a particular situation. Choose a time when your action made a difference, when you had to adapt or when you learned something useful. Work, study, volunteering and appropriate everyday experience may provide examples, depending on what the employer asks for.
The complete worksheet
Use the fields below on paper or in your own document. There are no online input boxes or submission buttons.
| Field | What to record |
|---|---|
| Target role and source | Role title, employer's page or document, date checked and application instructions. |
| Criterion | The exact requirement, whether it is essential or desirable and the part this example addresses. |
| Situation | Enough context to understand the problem, without names or unnecessary personal detail. |
| Your task | What you were responsible for and any important limit on your authority. |
| Your actions | What you personally did, in what order, and why you chose that approach. |
| Result | What happened, how you know and what remained unresolved. Use numbers only when you can support them. |
| Learning | What worked, what you would change and what the example taught you. |
| Evidence | A record, feedback or observation you can appropriately refer to; do not copy confidential material. |
| Gap or limitation | What the example does not demonstrate, or what you still need to learn. |
| Next step | A question to clarify, a learning action or a way to make the explanation more precise. |
Worked fictional example
The following is an invented practice illustration, not a real applicant's experience or a statement to copy into an application. It shows how an ordinary coordination task can be explained without claiming housing expertise.
| Field | Fictional illustration |
|---|---|
| Target role and source | A practice exercise; no employer or vacancy is represented. |
| Criterion | Communicate an agreed change clearly to other people. |
| Situation | Two volunteers had different versions of the timetable for a community-room event. |
| Your task | Help the coordinator establish and share the correct timetable; I could not approve changes myself. |
| Your actions | I compared the two versions, marked the differences, checked them with the coordinator and sent the approved version to both volunteers. I asked them to confirm which version they would use. |
| Result | Both volunteers confirmed the same timetable before the event. I did not have evidence of a wider improvement. |
| Learning | Checking understanding mattered as much as sending an update. Next time I would agree one dated source at the start. |
| Evidence | In a real example, an appropriate confirmation message or the applicant's own contemporaneous notes might help recall the sequence. |
| Gap or limitation | The example shows communication and coordination; it does not establish knowledge of tenancy law or housing systems. |
| Next step | Match the example to the precise criterion and prepare to explain why confirmation was requested. |
Review before using an example
Read your actions without the rest of the worksheet. Can someone tell what you personally contributed? Then read the result. Is it something you observed or can support, or an assumption about what might have happened?
Remove any identifying details about customers, residents or people using services. Keep only the context needed to understand your work. Do not upload private records to this website or include confidential records with an application unless the employer has a legitimate, appropriate process for requesting them.
If the example falls short of a requirement, record that honestly. You can ask the employer what it means or develop a learning plan; the worksheet is not a way to claim experience you do not have.
Print or download
Download the skills evidence worksheet (PDF) for a blank writing copy with the same prompts and fictional illustration. Version 1.0 · 4 November 2026. The complete guidance and example are available on this HTML page, which can also be printed using your browser.
Use the completed notes to write a supporting statement or prepare interview examples. Adapt the length and emphasis to the actual application instructions rather than pasting every field into your answer.
Follow the evidence
Sources and further reading
- National Careers Service: Application form adviceChecked 4 November 2026
- National Careers Service: The STAR methodChecked 4 November 2026
Use the examples you have gathered to plan a clear application. The supporting statement guide explains how to connect your evidence to a real person specification.